


The Way Things Go

by Themistoklis



Category: Fake News RPF
Genre: Demisexuality, M/M, demisexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-18
Updated: 2012-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-29 18:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themistoklis/pseuds/Themistoklis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes a while for Jon and Stephen to get to know each other well, but they manage it. And Jon knows himself well enough to recognize -- eventually, at least -- when things with them stop being a game. The problem is knowing what to do about it. (Crossposted from original location. Written for a holiday exchange.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way Things Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JenNova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenNova/gifts).



> For those unfamiliar with demisexuality, look [here](http://demisexuality.tumblr.com/aboutdemisexuality) for a brief definition. Thanks to politicette for betaing.

  
**[ [ December, 2003 ] ]**   


Stephen puts a knee between Jon's thighs and a flush crawls over Jon's skin.

"Are you sure you don't love my piece, Jon?"

Stephen Colbert is not a man who does things by halves, not even stupid, throwaway games of chicken when no one else is around to watch and declare the victor or call foul. And he's not above using his height, what there is of it past Jon's own, to corral Jon into a corner, or back him up against a wall when Jon's inconveniently been letting papers and magazines pile up in the corner again, like today.

"Just because I have to cut two minutes from it doesn't mean I don't love _you,_ Stephen," Jon reasons. He flattens his palms against Stephen's stomach while Stephen puts his hands on either side of Jon's shoulders, boxing him in a little more. In the back of his head he wonders if he should've said 'Colbert.'

There's a hanging moment when it seems like Stephen is going to raise the stakes, but his knee doesn't move, and his hands stay squared in place.

Instead he tilts his head to look straight at Jon and lets loose a smile he usually unleashes only after a few drinks. "I don't know, Jon," he drawls, "sometimes it feels like you _tell_ me but you never _show_ me."

When the urge to burst out giggling bubbles up in Jon's chest, when he remembers the last time Stephen talked about telling and showing was at three in the morning, on the phone talking Jon through another sleepless night, when Jon realizes Stephen has a triumphant look on his face because he knows Jon is about to laugh, _that's_ when it hits Jon why he's moved a hand up to behind Stephen's head and is curling his fingers around the base of his neck.

And it's not because he's playing a game.

\---

  
**[ [ January, 1999 ] ]**   


Being introduced to the leftover staff at _The Daily Show_ \-- and has Jon ever been careful not to refer to them as 'leftover' out loud, because that's not what he means but he knows it sounds that way -- is kind of like playing minesweeper.

Blindfolded.

When he gets ushered into a squished little office to meet Steve and Steve, one of whom apparently goes by Stephen most of the time to avoid confusion, he nearly gets both his hands shook at once and thinks the walls might be closing in on him. The tour guide for the day makes little shooing gestures and one of the Steves backs off, but the other just curls his hand tighter around Jon's and tugs him forward a bit.

"So," he purrs, his fingers linking with Jon's. His eyes are deep and dark and magnified by a pair of thin-rimmed glasses. "It was my understanding that I was in the running to host the Daily Show. How does your appointment affect my chances?"

A tiny, strangled sound of protest from his tour guide is less surprising than Jon's own laugh.

He squeezes Stephen's hand and shakes, looking over his shoulder at the tour guide. "I thought you said he wasn't funny," he says, and Stephen lets out a noise like a barking dog.

Later, at office parties and in the back corners of bars, on the phone in the middle of the night and at Jon's doorstep in the early morning, Stephen insists that he _did_ absolutely follow that up with "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," but Jon doesn't remember that no matter how hard he searches his memory.

All the same, sometimes he lets Stephen get away with the claim anyway.

\---

As soon as the final edits are wrapped on the first episode of _The Daily Show with Jon Stewart_ the cast and crew bursts into cheers. Jon doesn't have time to stand up from his chair before Stephen's hooking both hands under Jon's arms and hauling him forcibly to his feet, dragging him backwards down the hallway towards the room that's been designated for the party.

"What are you--" Jon sputters, trying to grab onto the wall. His fingers slip and slide across a balloon someone taped to the wall and can't find purchase before Stephen gives him a hard yank again.

He's laughing in Jon's ear and spins him around to push him through the doorway to the party with both hands. "I drew the short straw," he says, darting off through the crowd to disappear in a little cluster of slim guys with dark hair. From the back Jon isn't so good at telling his people apart yet.

It seems like everybody's packed into this one room knocking elbows and eating off each other's plates. Jon presses his back against one of the few parts of the wall without a hundred balloons taped to it and wraps his arms double across his stomach. He smiles whenever anyone looks at him and tucks his right wrist under his sleeve so he won't be tempted to keep looking at the watch he's not even wearing.

He understands, really. He went through this before at MTV. A crew not knowing if they're going to be cancelled celebrates at the drop of a hat, though of course the last party he went to at MTV was a farewell one.

But the first episode hasn't even _aired._ And no reviews have come out to contradict the gnawing, questioning, doubting articles that have spilled forth ever since Jon was announced as the new host.

He crosses his ankles. The room's so crowded he can't find anybody to go stand with, even if he knew who he was looking for. He does know that both of the Steves (though he's mostly stopped calling them that) have their backs to him, because he can't even tell their laughs apart from the general din. But he can't find them, and neither of them come looking for him, so he stays put against the wall while balloons rub against his shoulders.

Beth pushes a drink into his hand a few minutes after he starts planning an escape route. "We wanted to make sure you actually came instead of slinking out the back like you threatened," she says.

Jon's surprised she doesn't pat his cheek.

\---

The next night, he plans better.

He insists on getting into his street clothes before walking back to the editing booth. And he's already asked teasingly enough about everybody's hangovers that he's pretty sure most of them aren't eager to drink any more tonight. The chair he sits in is big enough to drape his coat across, too, so as soon as he's done he can jam his arms into the sleeves, and a man already dressed is a man hard to stop on his way out the door.

Stephen does it halfway down the stairs on the side of the building.

He's done up in his own coat, which is black and long and looks a lot cooler and more professional than Jon's own ratty leather one. A glass bottle is dangling from each of his hands, and Jon feels briefly nauseous before he squints and realizes it's not beer, it's soda.

"Are you going to take me to a sock hop?" he asks, taking the bottle Stephen proffers. Their fingers brush, but Stephen's wearing red knit gloves that match his scarf, so Jon guesses he doesn't feel it.

Stephen grins. "Could I talk you into a poodle skirt?"

"I've been known to don drag in my day," Jon says, cracking the lid off his bottle. "But never anything so retro." The soda burns on its way down and he struggles not to cough and ruin his cool and collected image.

One eyebrow up, Stephen stares at him long enough that Jon starts fiddling with the label on his bottle. It doesn't peel back easily. He ends up ripping a thin strip right through the logo. The metal steps are digging into his feet, and he shuffles his weight back so his shoes don't hang off the edge anymore.

"I'll let you go if you promise me you won't stay up all night reading reviews of the first episode," Stephen finally pronounces.

A giggle escapes Jon, unbidden. "You'll _let_ me go, Colbert? I didn't realize that was negotiable."

Stephen spreads his hands and smiles, as if that's supposed to speak for itself.

It takes another minute, but Jon relents and promises not to spend his whole night going through the stack of clippings he has at home. Mostly because it's cold and he doesn't have a scarf like Stephen does.

\---

  
**[ [ December, 2003 ] ]**   


Jon drops the hand curled over the back of Stephen's neck to his shoulder, drags it down to Stephen's chest, his fingers bunching Stephen's shirt up. "I," he starts, before that damn eyebrow cuts him off and he can't breathe, let alone speak.

"If you're thinking of ways to make it up to me, I'm more than willing to provide suggestions," Stephen says. His knee moves just the barest fraction of an inch, rubbing against Jon's thigh, and it's a surprised his pulse doesn't make Jon's eardrums burst right then and there. If this is a game for Stephen, he doesn't know what rulebook the man is using anymore.

"That would be -- great," Jon forces out, almost sagging against the wall when Stephen's eyes light up. "But, um, I have. I have chores to do."

The disbelief on Stephen's face is miles deep. "Chores?"

His voice is dry because he can't find it in him to wet his lips when Stephen is staring at him like that. "I have paperwork. To. I'm very behind," he says, inching sideways until Stephen lifts one of his palms from the wall and lets Jon past. "So, um, maybe later?"

"Okay," Stephen says, dubiously, while Jon is already halfway out the door.

In his office, Jon shuts the door behind him and sinks down on top of his desk, the wood cutting into the backs of his legs. It's safe and familiar in the way only a place you sit over two hundred days a year for four years can be, not something that could catch him off guard. It's something he knows as well as his own bed.

He puts his elbows on his knees and stares at the wall.

Last time he felt like this about someone, it was easier. It was just … fun. Denis made him laugh and didn't put up with his shit and made staying awake all night feel like an accomplishment instead of a failure and another reason to find a job with health insurance so he could talk to a doctor about sleeping pills.

This is different.

The same, because Stephen does all of those things and more.

But different too.

\---

  
**[ [ February, 2000 ] ]**   


It's not Valentine's Day when Stephen comes into the studio flanked by an inflated puppy balloon and hauling heart-shaped candy container the size of a small child under one arm. It's a few days after Valentine's Day, actually, so when Jon looks up and Stephen is wedged in the doorway of his office, the candy container stuck on the frame, he just stares instead of getting up to help.

"Hi!" Stephen chirps, talking like sweat hasn't broken out on his forehead at all.

Jon blinks. "I thought you were working on _Strangers_ today."

"I needed to drop something off," Stephen says. He's got that edge to his voice that says if he goes back to the coffee shop for one more, they'll give him a free one after.

Slowly, Jon lowers his eyes to stare at the candy container, and then at the puppy floating a few inches above Stephen's head. When Stephen catches him looking, he looks at both of the things himself, eyes widening like he's never seen them before in his life.

It's with a certain awe that he says, "These are for Amy and Paul," and since he sounds like he's reading the tags on Christmas presents that weren't under the tree when he fell asleep on the couch, Jon starts laughing so hard he has to fold his arms on his desk and bury his face in his sleeves.

When he finally looks back up Stephen is beaming. "They like the after-holiday sales! And Amy made cookies for the whole crew the other day!" Then he pauses. "Good to see you laugh, though," he says, and he sounds smugly proud for doing something Jon is absolutely sure he didn't plan on doing.

\---

It occurs to Jon that he's rooting for the success of a show that keeps the one person he really wants to get to know away from the studio four days out of five, and not everyone even comes in on the fifth day, anyway.

But he cuts out articles about _Strangers with Candy_ the way he used to collect clippings reviewing him, back when he couldn't sleep until he'd read something doubting whether the show would last another three months. Except he only saves the good ones for Stephen's show, even when Stephen's not even in them. He starts to get a little crush on Amy through her interviews, though he's sure he's not using the word crush like other people do.

He just thinks she's funny, is all.

There's a whole week where Stephen is actually in every day, for some reason. Jon can't remember why. He's got about half a dozen phone calls to balance and ten faxes to respond to but he drops everything when Stephen comes into his office and quietly shuts the door behind himself.

"Do I need to grab the first-aid kit?" He's only half-joking, so he's not surprised when Stephen only half-smiles.

He walks over and plants himself on the one uncluttered corner of Jon's desk. "I was thinking we could grab dinner tomorrow night. After you're done with the edits." He pauses and tilts his head so the light glares off his glasses and Jon can't see his eyes. "Unless you've instituted a Thursday night drinking fest with everybody else that I haven't been privy to."

"Oh, I'd definitely tell you about Thursday night drinking fest," Jon says, his pen doing acrobatics over his knuckles. "I've always wondered if you're as Irish as you claim."

"You don't think I can hold my liquor?" Stephen asks, imperiously.

The corner of Jon's mouth turns up. "You probably weigh less than me soaking wet. So, no, not really." He glances over at the calendar tacked to the wall to make sure he doesn't actually have anything planned for that night and asks, "So who else is 'we'?"

Stephen blinks. "Beg pardon?"

"You, me, I'm guessing Steve, but who else is coming?"

The blank look on Stephen's face actually makes a flush creep up Jon's neck.

"We've just been working together for so long without actually… working together that much," Stephen says, eyes slowly moving around the office. There's scripts from other correspondents' pieces-in-progress taped up on the walls, and a corner where a bunch of Polaroid shots from around the studio make the office a little less claustrophobic than it would be otherwise. Stephen stars at them for a long minute before looking back at Jon.

Jon puts his pen down and thinks he should get someone to take out the camera one day when Stephen's in, so he'll have at least one photo on the wall. "Yeah, yeah," he says, nodding. "Okay. Is there -- something you want to talk about, I mean?"

"I've got a few ideas," Stephen says.

\---

They're all fucking hilarious.

Jon feels ridiculous, laughing so hard so late at night when everyone around them seems to be grumpily wiping slush off their boots and here mostly because it would've taken more effort to turn around in the snow than to just keep going. The couple of times he's dared to look up, or thrown his head back laughing, he's seen more than one person glance their way, and not because they seem to recognize them from TV.

But Stephen is practically climbing over the table trying to make Jon fall hard enough for his ideas that he'll want to put them on the air, and work with Stephen's wacky schedule to actually get them done. There's no resisting it.

"Stop it," Stephen says, once, his hand closing over Jon's fist to tug it away from where Jon's using it to hide his smile. Stephen's palm is clammy, but he holds on tight, and Jon is in good enough spirits that the touch doesn't bother him. "You don't have to do that."

"Do what?" Jon asks. He's staring at the way the pressure of Stephen's grip is making the man's fingernails go white at the tips.

"Apologize," Stephen says. "For laughing."

"I don't--" He starts, and Stephen cocks an eyebrow that shuts him up. Jon thinks for a moment, straining too hard to even pull his hand out of Stephen's grip. "It's just the way I laugh," he finally says. "Like. My chest. When you cough, you pull your arms up in--"

Stephen does let go of him then, his hand going to curl around the handle of his drink instead of Jon's skin. "Oh, the asthma."

"Yeah, yeah. It's habit."

"Got it."

They don't talk again until both of their current glasses are empty.

"So… do you… do you get attacks from, you know, _laughing?_ "

"I mean, I can."

"So I could _kill you?_ "

"If it hurt that bad I would tell you, Stephen."

"Okay."

\---

  
**[ [ December, 2003 ] ]**   


It takes long enough for Jon to make himself stand again that his knees creak when he unfolds his legs.

He has to touch the wall once on his walk across the office so he doesn't lose his balance. Shrugging on his coat is equally as difficult. At least his fingers stop feeling numb while he does up his buttons, and when he steps into the hall he's feeling ridiculously overdressed (like he does wearing anything but a windbreaker), but warm.

By now he knows himself well enough to know some of what comes next. He'll feel that warm coil in the bottom of his stomach for as long as he and Stephen have … whatever it is they have.

Sometimes he feels it with the others, though his sample base is pretty much one Denis Leary, because he's not twenty or twenty-five anymore and even comics calm down a bit in their middle age. The others… he doesn't see most of them anymore. If _most_ can apply to such a small group. And even with Denis, it's not like he thinks of pinning the man on the green room couch every time he comes in for an interview. (Not that it was _ever_ like that, but still.)

What makes it so hard to open the door is … Stephen.

Nobody talks to him in the hallway, and he doesn't hear any sounds behind the closed doors, so he guesses that if anyone came back from lunch they left again without trying to find him. Part of him thinks it's because he sends out vibes that he doesn't want to be disturbed.

The rest of him knows that whenever Stephen's sulking, nobody wants to talk to Jon. And he's pretty sure that the lack of knocking at his door means Stephen _is_ sulking.

Halfway down the exterior staircase Jon turns around and walks back up.

He likes Denis, always did. But he _likes_ Stephen. He's just never. Well.

Stephen's staring at the television without watching when Jon shoulders his way into the man's office. "Hey," he says, startled, sitting up straight. He picks his glasses up off his desk and slides them on. "Done with your chores?" he asks, smoothing his hair back into place and remembering to grin.

"Do you want to go to dinner with me?" Jon asks.

For a long moment Stephen just looks at him, and Jon's knees start to weaken. He wishes he _had_ chickened out and just kept walking down the stairs.

"…It's two-thirty in the afternoon," Stephen says.

Jon does a little mental math and starts to sweat. "We could get drinks first."

Something in Stephen's eyes darkens, but he doesn't have to _remember_ to smile this time.

"Still don't think I can hold my liquor?"

\---

  
**[ [ October, 2001 ] ]**   


Play the one gay guy in the sketch?

Sure, why not, he's already gay under the right circumstances, and it's even funnier that he's not the one sharing a bed with either of the Steves (Stephen still doesn't know Jon calls them that sometimes).

A Moment of Zen where they all take their shirts off?

"Sure, why not?"

It's the expected response, and in a fair number of situations, Jon knows how to give the expected response. He realizes that being asked to take his shirt off here isn't exactly personal, and nobody's expecting him to sex it up on demand -- the opposite, really -- but unbuttoning his shirt and shrugging it off in front of anyone but the mirror still has those connotations to it.

There have been few people Jon's actually undressed for, and some of those were still attempts to hide in plain sight. There's nothing about half-stripping in front of the Steves and assorted crew that makes this not feel like hiding.

"You're fucking pale," Steve says, pushing Stephen's shoulder.

Stephen giggles and sucks in a breath so his skin tightens over his ribs. "Should I assume you're without tan lines, then, Carell?"

Jon runs a hand through his hair. He should have a better sense of humor about this. It's just a skit. He's not the only one being asked to do it. Nobody actually thinks they're about to stomp around and do a whole soft porn bit to go along on the blooper reel.

"Your _mother_ ," Steve counters, which lacks a punch line but still makes Stephen bray like a donkey.

They might be thinking that Jon's bad sexy posing is the result of knowing sexy so well that he's able to be bad at it masterfully, though. Instead he's just copying the way he thought people acted when he was in high school and hadn't met one of those few people he'd wanted to undress for yet. This stuff doesn't come instinctually to everybody, or all the time.

He does protest when Stephen plants his hands on Jon's hips and maneuvers him between the two Steves, but he gets told "The shortest one has to go in the middle, Jon! For symmetry!", which is hard to argue with in front of all the crew.

When he's watching the audience watch the clip roll on the screens later, he feels unbelievably stupid. Then Stephen and Steve run out to take a bow and bump their chests together, and at least that takes some of the attention off him.

\---

It's October, meaning Jon's invited to Halloween parties through the month, and some of the time he's actually expected to show up. He figures if he goes to the show's party he'll have an excuse for not attending the few his colleagues are throwing themselves, even though the show's party doesn't actually conflict with any of theirs.

The show's party -- by my-name-is-in-the-title decree -- is absolutely not a costume party. Which means Jon can show up in his sweats and look no more out of place than he does around the writer's table on a day when everyone collectively decides to wear jeans without telling him.

Of course, there _are_ a few people who do show up in costume.

"Jon! Jon Jon Jon!"

He stumbles a little when Stephen hooks an arm around him from behind, slamming against his side in what translates through the early-party inebriation as a gentle hug.

"Hi, Stephen," Jon says, carefully. The years have taught him many things, and one of those things is that not being able to tell what someone's Halloween costume is supposed to be can make them sad.

It's a glittery gold dress with a slit almost all the way up the thigh, and Jon guesses that Stephen has been angling his hips carefully ever since he put it on. "Jon," Stephen says, grinning broadly. He reaches up and touches his palm to Jon's cheek. "Jon Jon Jon."

"You're drunk." Jon ruffles Stephen's hair affectionately.

Stephen's eyes widen. "No!" he whispers. "I only drank punch!"

"Well, that explains it." He looks out over the room and spots Nancy standing next to the punch bowl, pouring a refill from a washed-out milk jug. "Nancy, I told you Stephen's not allowed to have sugar!" he calls.

Skirt swishing between his legs, Stephen collapses in a fit of giggles against Jon's side. Nancy flips them off.

\---

When Jon starts to leave, since he's managed to stay long enough without burning out that he wouldn't actually be one of the first people to leave, he pauses halfway up from his chair. It's not comfortable, but he got stuck in place when Stephen whipped around, his skirt probably flashing anyone who, like Jon, is still mostly sitting down. Someone must have told him Jon was on the move.

Tottering over in heels that have got to be pinching his feet, Stephen waves at Jon with his whole arm, and Jon lowers himself back into his chair.

"You can't go yet!" Stephen whines, dropping into the seat next to Jon. These chairs don't have arms on them, so he can easily stretch his leg out, hooking a knee over Jon's. The glittery gold dress drops off his leg and hangs down to the floor.

Jon glances around the room. "I can't?"

Resting a cheek on Jon's shoulder, Stephen flops forward. The deep V-neck in his dress parts some when he does and Jon sees briefly that the man is wearing pale pasties. He wonders if Stephen couldn't find ones to match his dress. Stephen is breathing damply on Jon's neck and Jon tries not to fidget.

"You have to stay for the scary stories," Stephen says, looking up at Jon without raising his head. He looks a lot different without his glasses on.

"I'm good at coming up with my own scary stories." Jon's leg is falling asleep under the pressure from Stephen's. He wonders if it would be rude to nudge Stephen off so he could get the circulation back.

Stephen curls a hand over Jon's arm and blinks rapidly -- until his eyes are clear, Jon guesses. "But I'm telling one of them!" he says. "I wrote it just for this party!"

"Oh," Jon says, pausing. "Well. Okay."

\---

  
**[ [ December, 2003 ] ]**   


The place they go is somewhere they've never gone before. Jon picks it because he's read about it, in one of those 'neighborhood sights' columns. And they do manage to find a few hours of work to do so they're not trying to eat dinner at four in the afternoon.

Walking in, it's less cheesy than he expected, though a lot more crowded than he would've liked. If he was here alone he would've turned around and left, but he plants himself square in the entry and starts timing his breaths.

Stephen curls a hand over the back of Jon's neck when he sees somewhere they can sit. Jon hopes he can't feel how hot that makes his skin flush, and he nods mutely at whatever Stephen says, not hearing the words past frantically wondering whether Stephen's touching him like that just because Jon had touched _him_ like that earlier.

"You doing okay?" Stephen asks, glancing around at the room before meeting Jon's eyes.

Jon settles into his chair, tucking his legs as far underneath the table as they'll go. "Yeah, yeah," he murmurs. He swallows and starts, "How--" but can't finish it, because he _knows_ how Stephen's day went, he was there for most of it.

The rest of the talk feels mechanical, and the two of them are people who can -- and do -- repeat word-for-word conversations they've had years ago.

This could be the worst decision Jon's ever made. He wonders if it's too late to back out.

\---

  
**[ [ July, 2002 ] ]**   


The air conditioning isn't working in Jon's apartment, so at night he crawls out the window and sits on the balcony, remembering the days when he only had fire escapes to sit on because he never could've afforded a place with a balcony. Or had a secure enough income to relax enough to sign a lease on one.

In the old days he would've dragged his phone as far from the plug as possible, stretching the cord through the window behind him. But now there's no cord and he can sit on the balcony until the battery runs out. The sound's so good he can hear it when Stephen answers his own phone by knocking it off his end table.

Jon nearly hangs up before Stephen can get a hold of his own phone again, but the man either slides off the bed to grab it or it fell close enough that he didn't have to move from his spot to latch on. "'Lo?"

"Sorry," Jon whispers. He winces and clears his throat, so he'll sound less like a kid out of bed at two in the morning. "I mean. I. Didn't mean to wake you up. Sorry. Go back to sleep."

"You can't call a man at one-thirty in the morning and then hang up on him, Jonathan," Stephen chides him, yawning.

Jon tucks his knees up to his chest. "Couldn't sleep," he says.

 _Lonely,_ he doesn't.

"Tol' you to call me," Stephen says. There's a soft sound that Jon guesses is Stephen flopping back on his pillows. "You got…" He yawns again. "Your air back on?"

"No." Jon wiggles his toes against the smooth tile. In the dark, in the middle of the night, it's not unbearably hot. "But it's okay. There's a breeze."

Stephen gurgles something that sounds like "Would fan you if I was there." Jon giggles, touching his forehead to his knees, and says " _Were_ there" with as much of a drawl as he can muster.

The next thing Stephen says is bright and cheery and absolutely not something Jon would repeat in polite company. But it's good to keep laughing.

\---

Sometimes Jon doesn't give into the urge to call.

He lies in bed with the phone and rolls it back and forth between his palms, until he forgets he's doing it, and it's just a weird plastic noise coming from… somewhere. With the curtains drawn it's nearly dark in his room. He gets just enough light to see the chipped paint on his ceiling where he tossed a tennis ball too high once.

This time will be the time Stephen decides he's not willing to put up with early-morning phone calls.

This time will be the time Stephen's unplugged his phone to make sure he has an excuse to not answer Jon.

This time will be the time Jon hangs up before Stephen can answer. Like Stephen can't just hit redial.

Eventually Jon tosses the phone over onto a chair or lets it slide to the floor, or rolls onto his stomach and feels it press into his ribs because he didn't remember he was holding it in time.

People used to tell him it was harder to make friends when you were older. Everybody starts pairing off and there's no mandatory seven hours of school to keep people you don't know captive long enough to have a conversation. Jon knew that, he was prepared for it, in the way you get used to the idea that you're going to have a very active imagination as you get older.

What he forgot about was how hard it was to keep a friend.

On the nights Jon doesn't call, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and pads into the living room to watch the vaguely hallucinatory shows Fox puts on this late. If he's working, he doesn't have to think about why the thought of losing Stephen hurts too much to do something he has permission to do.

He doesn't even know what he would talk about, anyway.

\---

"You look like shit," Stephen whispers in his ear.

Jon presses his fist to his mouth and tries not to spit out his drink. He's pretty sure he hears Stephen smirking, which Stephen confirms by swinging around the edge of the couch and plopping down next to Jon, a sheath of papers in his arms.

"Think the makeup people can fix this?" Jon asks, tugging at a stray piece of hair.

He's leveled with a grave look before Stephen smooshes his cheek against Jon's shoulder. "You send our makeup people to hell and back nightly, Jon. I'm pretty sure they can handle anything."

Shaking his head, Jon finishes off the last of his drink and tosses the water bottle at the trash can in the corner. It bounces off the rim and goes spinning. The two of them sit there and watch until it stops, and Jon notices that he's not noticing the heat of Stephen's breath on his neck. Not in a bad way, anyway. He wonders when that got normal.

Then he starts wondering if he can stay awake long enough to ask Stephen to grab something to eat after work, and whether forcing himself not to drowse off would ruin another night of would-be sleep a few hours later…

"Why haven't you been calling me?"

"Huh?" Jon blinks.

Stephen pulls his glasses off and looks up at Jon through his eyelashes. "You've got dark circles like black holes under your eyes. You haven't been sleeping." He tilts his head so his cheek rubs against Jon's sleeve. "But I can't remember the last time you called me at night."

Jon rubs his thumb over the seam of his sweatpants. "It gets to be too much, after a while. Didn't want to wear out my welcome."

 _"Call me,"_ Stephen says. He flicks his finger against the back of Jon's ear, and Jon giggles again.

Maybe it'd be harder to lose Stephen than keep him.

\---

  
**[ [ December, 2003 ] ]**   


"Raspberry cheesecake," Jon says, handing the waitress his menu.

He'd say he has no idea what possessed him to give into Stephen's suggestion that they stay for dessert, except the look on Stephen's face had clearly been _If you don't want to get some here, I have cupcakes at my place_. Jon may not be sweating anymore, but if he has no idea what to do in a public restaurant, he'd have even less idea what to do behind closed Colbert doors.

And to think, there was a time he'd thought things would be _easier_ whenever a relationship built to the point where he actually got attracted to the person in return.

Stephen grins and flips his menu shut. "Ooh, me too!"

A smile comes onto the waitress's face and Jon doesn't quite understand the flip his stomach makes when she says, "You should split one. More romantic that way."

"What do you say, Jon?" Stephen asks, his eyes lit up. "Sound romantic to you?"

Jon blushes.

"That's a yes," Stephen says. He winks at the waitress as she walks off, and rests his elbows on the table so he can put his chin in his hands. "I like this place. We should come back sometime."

"It's not bad," Jon concedes. It probably would've been better if he had been able to pay more attention to what he was eating instead of doing desperate mental calculations to figure out whether changing things with Stephen was worth the… was worth the…

When the food comes Jon wonders whether Stephen would ever be able to eat raspberry cheesecake again if he went forward and everything fell apart on them. (But really, whether Jon could. He thinks the answer's probably not.)

The dessert's nearly gone and he's starting to panic about whether they're going to be sharing a cab when they leave when Stephen reaches over to cover Jon's hand with his. Jon looks up, his neck creaking, and swallows the bite of cheesecake in his mouth.

"Was this a date?" Stephen asks, his face a mask.

Jon meets his eyes and stares for a long minute. All he can see there is that he could say no and all Stephen would do is pull his hand away from Jon's. Things would keep being the same. Or at least, the same without… certain possibilities. Jon doesn't know how many more or less there would be if he said no. Or whether they'd even be the same without the particular possibility Stephen's asking him about right now.

He doesn't even know what answer Stephen wants. Or expects.

So there's just him. What answer he wants to give.

And…

Using the edge of his spoon, Jon slices the last raspberry off the top of the cheesecake and scoots it across the plate.

A grin as wide as the Grand Canyon breaks open on Stephen's face.

\---

Apparently neither of them can decide whether to split a cab. They end up walking down the street, hands tangled together. And Jon tells him.

He just blurts it out. It takes a few false starts, because even with a word to describe it, defining it for anybody who's not the same takes a while. Partly because he expects Stephen to interrupt him and tell him it's perfectly normal, millions of people only want to have sex with people they're in love with (even though that's not what Jon's saying he feels like -- sometimes it's what people hear). But Stephen doesn't talk until Jon's finished talking.

The questions Stephen asks aren't the ones Jon expected, which leaves him on shaky ground as far as answering them. He tries, though. It's been a while and he's forgotten how much easier it is to talk about when neither parties in the conversation is high, or drunk.

"Did I ever make you uncomfortable?"

"You invited me to the _Strangers_ set once without telling me you were doing nude shots that day."

Stephen almost slips on the sidewalk, he laughs so hard. Jon has to put an arm around his waist to steady him, and it feels warm and comfortable and not so much like a terrible risk. "That was artistic!" he protests, clinging to Jon's sleeve. "But I meant -- did I… the way…"

"I would've told you if you were making me uncomfortable," Jon says, carefully.

He has a dozen different reasons why he never told anyone he was uncomfortable about certain things. Didn't want to seem pushy. Or weird. Or bad at playing with others. People react badly when you tell them something normal for them is making you uncomfortable. People react badly if you just don't agree vocally enough with them about their normality. The studio doesn't have lockers for him to be shoved against, but the principle's the same.

The eyebrow tilt he gets in return suggests Stephen doesn't entirely believe him but will be shelving that line of questioning until a later date.

"We don't have to have sex," Stephen says, too, after they've stopped to get coffee. "I get it. I mean. You've kept quiet enough that I kind of figured, anyway, that maybe…"

"I like sex," Jon drawls.

Stephen opens and shuts his mouth. "Oh."

"It just takes a long time before I feel attracted to somebody that way." He cups his mug with both hands and lets the heat crawl up through his fingers. They're walking slower now that they're not holding hands, and every few steps their shoulders bump together.

"Right," Stephen says, forehead creasing while he mulls that over. He glances over and bites his lip. "I am trying. I'm sorry, I--"

"It's a lot," Jon says, kicking a pebble off the sidewalk. "You're doing better than some people."

Stephen reaches out, then seems to realize both of Jon's hands are occupied. He shifts his head to kiss Jon's ear, which makes Jon turn pink. "Can I ask one more thing before wearing you out?"

Jon looks sideways at him. "Yeah?"

"What makes me different from your other friends?" Stephen murmurs. "That you… like me? In a dating way," he clarifies.

That's something Jon could talk about for the rest of the night.

\---

"Do you remember when we first met?"

"It'd be hard to forget."

They did end up splitting a cab, and going back to Jon's place. They'd been wandering in that general direction, and it had been threatening snow, and after some give and take they'd finally settled on Jon's place because it was easier to get cabs there in the morning when Stephen would need to go home.

Stephen's stretched out on the couch now. Jon's tucked up on one end, with Stephen's feet in his lap. Jon's resisting the urge to start rubbing them because he doesn't know if that's a weird first-date activity. "I remember trying to beat Steve to shake your hand first."

"I remember calling you 'the Steve with the glasses' in my head," Jon says.

Giggling, Stephen draws his legs up and shifts onto his knees, crawling across the cushions to rub his cheek against Jon's shoulder. "Did you really expect me not to be funny?" he asks.

"It was kind of one of the hallmarks of the contract negotiation." He hooks his arms around Stephen's waist and presses a kiss into his hair. One of the things they'd decided on the way home was that tonight would stay in first date territory.

Stephen tucks himself half into Jon's lap, and Jon rubs his hands up and down Stephen's sides. "But you'd seen the show!" Stephen protests, tipping his head back.

"They said you had good writers," Jon says. "The point is, you proved them wrong." He kisses Stephen's forehead.

Stephen smiles.

"Hells yeah I did."


End file.
